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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28487763">In the Broken Places</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah/pseuds/Tallulah'>Tallulah</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Until Dawn (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bad Ending, Gen, Guilt, Post-Canon, Spoilers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:21:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,910</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28487763</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah/pseuds/Tallulah</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashley and Mike made some choices they regret. Mike's paying for his. Ashley won't.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Mike</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the 12 Days of Christmas challenge on Dreamwidth, prompt "seven broken pieces".</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The thing is, you can make decision after decision and you can start off thinking smart, you can start off getting everything right, but if the choices keep coming at you, the choices and the fact that you’ll get people killed if you don’t make the right one, after a while you start to slip up. Especially if you’ve been awake all night. And one choice fucks everything else up. One broken piece and the whole lot crumbles. Or something.</p><p>Mike knew, he knew as soon as he pulled the trigger, that he’d fucked up. Emily with her head thrown back, one eye a bloody hole, the other shocked and still, like he’d slapped her, but she didn’t sit up, she didn’t blink, and there was blood all over the wall like – </p><p>He knew but he didn’t know. He felt like he was going to black out and he couldn’t let that happen because he had to keep a cool head, he had to get them off the mountain alive, it was the safe room, he had to keep them safe –</p><p>So he dashed off to get the cable car key back and he managed not to throw up until he was well away from the others and then a hell of a lot of other shit happened and it was so dark and cold everywhere it was like it was constantly <i>now</i> and he could sort of pretend that it had been someone else who shot Em.</p><p>He was so goddamn tired by the time they ended up at the police station – tired and cold, like never going to be warm again, teeth chattering every time he breathed – he didn’t know half of what he was saying. He was trying to explain the parts about why he’d blown up a building, and the words tangled in his head and got snagged on the stuff about shooting Emily. He tried to explain. He tried to explain.</p><p>They asked him a bunch of questions and between that they left him in the interview room for what felt like hours but time was going really weird by now. It wasn’t as dark and it wasn’t as cold but it was still like an endless now, a few times he thought he was dozing off and waking to find it had all been a dream, and then he’d open his eyes for real and he’d still be here. It wasn’t as cold but he was still shaking. </p><p>It’s probably because of all of that, because he’s basically half-dead on his feet, that when the cop finally comes back and tells him they’re charging him with Emily Davis’s murder it’s a huge surprise. Like with all the stuff about bites and pranks and open gas taps he’d completely forgotten back in the real world it might, it might all look different.</p><p>He makes an effort to say the stuff he’s sure he said earlier but maybe didn’t because he doesn’t know what he was saying. <i>But I told you. I told you. The bite. I thought she was going to –</i></p><p>The cop looks at him kind of pityingly, like he thinks Mike is a crazy person rather than a stone cold killer. (Is that good? Is it better if everyone thinks you’re crazy? He has no idea.) <i>Look, it sounds like you kids got carried away. I get it, it was a party, you were drinking, there was a game that got out of hand, and you were waving a gun around and thought you were in a zombie movie –</i></p><p>That’s the worst moment, when Mike starts thinking was it really just that, was it really just a <i>game</i>, a <i>prank</i>, or him tripping or something? That there’d never been anything to be scared of? That everything they’d seen had been… that they’d just been stupid kids playing in the woods… that all the fear and the decisions and the screaming, it had all been a joke?</p><p>He forgets what happened after that. At some point they took him out of the interview room, finally, but he doesn’t remember it. They took another look at where his fingers had been and patched them up properly and he doesn’t remember that, either. The next thing he remembers is waking up. There’s daylight through a window, but far away, and he’s on the wrong side of a barred door, but he was so deep asleep he wasn’t dreaming, so it’s more like he opens his eyes and is just like, <i>so they weren’t kidding about that murder charge</i>. Actually, that’s not what he thinks – he’d like to have been calm enough to think that but he isn’t thinking in words. After a bit, he wonders if anyone’s called his parents. Should he have done that? Asked for the one phone call? Or will one of the others tell them? If they let them go. Isn’t like any of them shot anyone. But they’ll be wanting to get in touch with their own folks. He tries to tell himself it’s okay, sooner or later someone will tell his parents he’s here and it isn’t like he’s going anywhere, but he mostly just wants to – to start crying and beg them to come take him home, like he’s a child again.</p><p>A while later – the sun’s set, Mike tries to keep the square of night sky out of his vision but he can’t, he keeps thinking he hears screams and snarls under the hum of the lights, and when he closes his eyes he sees snow falling on the charred remains of the lodge, on Emily’s upturned face, he just pulled the trigger and that was <i>it</i> –</p><p>A while later, there are a couple of other guys in the cell with him, just sitting around, which is apparently what you do in jail, sit around and wait for people to ask you more questions. This time, it’s one of them who asks, <i>Hey, man, what happened to your fingers?</i> </p><p>Mike’s not sure he’ll ever have the energy to lie again – if he was going to, it would’ve been better to do it twelve hours ago or whatever – so he just says, <i>Got ‘em caught in a bear trap.</i> </p><p>
  <i>Shit.</i>
</p><p>The other guy says, <i>You were, what, trespassing? Some of the farmers round here are assholes, that’s for sure –</i></p><p>Mike says, <i>It was in the abandoned sanitorium. Up on Blackwood Mountain.</i></p><p>They look at him like they think he could be bullshitting them, which is fair enough. He says, <i>I got lost on the mountains. Took some wrong turns.</i> Understatement of the century. He wants to imagine Em saying that, <i>You always were a moron</i> or something equally scathing but he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to think of her again without seeing her dead, her shocked eye and the broken-in place where the other one should be. He wonders if he can fall asleep again.</p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Ashley</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The canteen’s busy and full of light and noise but Ashley feels like she’s watching it all behind glass. That happens, sometimes. She waits for it to pass. Her friends who weren’t on the mountain would glance at each other and give her space, maybe hug her, start a bright and happy conversation about something else. They know there was an <i>accident</i>, they know she was <i>traumatised</i>. Sam waits, but she doesn’t say anything, she just watches Ashley, keeps eating her own lunch. Sam gets it – she once said it happens to her, sometimes, too – but –</p>
<p>They mostly don’t talk about what happened. They sit in silence and maybe make the odd remark about classes or homework or, occasionally, therapy, but mostly they don’t talk. Ashley’s okay with them not talking. The last time they said anything much was when Sam said, <i>Mike’s out on bail, just so you know.</i> Ashley was like, <i>Oh, have you… have you seen him?</i> Sam looked her in the face and said, <i>Yeah. I mean, he isn’t good, if that’s what you were going to ask next.</i> Ashley should’ve just said something like, <i>No, poor guy</i> and let it drop but she didn’t, because when she’s nervous she can’t keep her mouth shut, she said, <i>But they’re not going to… like, they’ll… I mean, it’s not like they think he’s a serial killer, they’ll...</i> Even as she was talking she knew she was being stupid. She’d been there, she’d seen Mike blow Emily’s brains out with a revolver, that’s what they’re going to try him for. Sam looked at her like she was being stupid, for sure.</p>
<p><i>I don’t know what they’ll think,</i> she says. <i>Seeing as they’re still maintaining we got spooked by what Josh did and made everything else up, I’m not sure the <b>infectious Wendigo bite</b> defense will wash.</i> </p>
<p>That was the first point. Sam didn’t need to say, <i>You were as sure as Mike that Emily was dangerous, but you didn’t pick up a gun, you let him make that choice</i>, because Ashley can hear it in her voice, in the clatter and rattle of the canteen around them. <i>You were all for sending Emily out to get ripped apart,</i> Sam doesn’t say, but her face says. Even though the diary was right there and you didn’t bother to check it. If she ever actually spelt this out, Ashley could retort, <i>You didn’t bother to look, either,</i> she could say, <i>You’re only blaming me because you fancy Mike,</i> she could say, <i>you could have stopped him as well –</i></p>
<p>She doesn’t say any of it. She hates having arguments anyway. You always say stuff you regret. Best not to say anything. </p>
<p><i>I spoke to Chris’s mom and dad,</i> Sam said, early on.</p>
<p>Ashley nearly spat out her mouthful of mashed potatoes. Everyone had avoided mentioning Chris to her. After the first time someone had said <i>I’m so sorry about Chris</i> and she’d had a panic attack, people had learned not to. </p>
<p>Sam doesn’t care about panic attacks. Sam watches her and says, <i>They asked me what had happened. I mean, I tried to explain. It was… difficult.</i> She swallows. <i>Maybe they thought I was crazy. I don’t know. But I told them.</i></p>
<p>Ashley can feel the door handle under her hands. Her breath on the glass. She swallows her food, manages to keep it down. Through the blood pounding in her head she can hear Chris screaming at her to open the door. She keeps her face blank, like she did to him.</p>
<p><i>I didn’t tell them you saw him die,</i> Sam says. She stares down at her plate now, traces a pattern with her fork. <i>That seems a lot to put on you.</i></p>
<p>Ashley nearly does say it all then. Throw her plate at Sam’s head, kick the table over, smash every bit of crockery on the table into pieces, scream <i>You don’t know what it was like! You don’t know! He was going to let me die. He was going to let me die and then, what, just act like it didn’t matter? Like we could go back to, to being friends and – like his goofy-guy act would fix it all?</i> He had been supposed to protect her. He’d been going to protect her and – <i>He just held the gun up to my face and – pulled the trigger – </i></p>
<p><i>I’m sure Emily would be able to sympathise,</i> Sam would say.</p>
<p>They don’t say anything. They eat in silence. It’s better that way.</p>
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